Night Owl Cards

  Unlike the last couple of Father's Days, I'm posting on the actual day today. I took the last couple days off to refresh, so now I'm ready to go with just a small pack break.   Like last year , for Father's Day I received a hanger box of Heritage and a gift card (which shall go toward cards. Unlike last year, I'm not trying to complete the Heritage set, so the stakes are not high, which is key for this day. Absolutely no stakes on Father's Day. No stakes, only steaks!   Let's see what kind of box my daughter picked out this time around, just the highlights (and lowlights):     I do like the Record Breaker cards in this set. Yes, "XBHS" takes me out of 1977 but the overall vibe of the card reminds me of pulling the Minnie Minoso and Jose Morales Record Breakers back in '77.     The guy who tried to smite the Dodgers in last year's World Series. I haven't heard a whole lot about him this year -- admittedly I'm not paying too much at...

  With the way that Topps Heritage has dropped a lot of the traditions that made it so fun to collect, I kind of assumed/implied that every tribute used in the past was out the window. But that's not entirely the case.   The subsets from the chosen year still exist, the All-Star logos do, too. The design is the same -- um, sort of. And, I realized that Heritage is still matching card numbers, linking players who play on the respective team now with one who played on it then.   I don't know if it's happening as often as when I first did this comparison 12 or 13 years ago, probably not. But it's nice to know something is still right with this brand that's been the biggest disappointment of the 2026 card year for me so far.   I went through the modest amount of 2026 Heritage I have and found a handful of matches. I'll start with the obvious ones.   Each of the 2026 Heritage card shares its number with the 1977 Topps card. The italicizing of NL and removing the peri...

  It's my all-time favorite player Ron Cey's birthday today. He's 77. Yikes.   The last couple of years I've been able to show a card that "matches" with his birthday. You know, 1975 Topps with 75 years old, 1976 Topps with age 76, etc.   So this is his 1977 Topps card here. This was a big year for Cey and for me collecting him. Let's start with me.   The '77 season was really my first year of being super invested in major league baseball. I already knew I liked the Dodgers and that Cey was my favorite player, but what did that really mean? In 1977 I had the full concept down. This is why I was so glad that I pulled Cey's card that year very early on in the card season. I think it might've been from a rack pack but I don't know for sure.   As for Cey, he enjoyed a standout, powerful season in '77, beginning with the very first month. In April that year, he batted .425, hit nine home runs and drove in 29. He still holds the Dodger record...

  I am back after a few days out of town for the holiday.   During that time I engaged in no card things. There wasn't even an Easter card pack to open as there often is. That was very sad. Wandering in the wasteland stuff.   But at least there was baseball on the TV. While waiting for a game to start, I was flipping aimlessly through channels, which is something I almost never do anymore. (The internet connection isn't great where I was staying so old-school entertainment it was!) I stumbled upon an episode of "The Card Life". I think a lot of readers probably know what that is, it's the hobby show hosted by Phillies reliever Matt Strahm, who is also well-known as a card collector. I had no idea that the show was on television, I thought it was youtube/streaming only. But there it was on one of the MSG channels. As luck would have it, they were featuring something I was actually interested in -- the story about Roy Carlson, a longtime collector, who has created...

  It's World Series time starting tonight, what's sure to be my least-watched World Series since probably the late '90s. I'm not one of those "it's baseball, I'll watch no matter what" fans anymore, not at this time of the year. The game's changed too much for me to be in love with it that much. I will let "I was at work" be my excuse for not watching, but even on off days, like this weekend, I'll tune in for maybe a few innings. I still need to have a rooting interest, that's always a given. This year, it's easy. I have no allegiance to the Rangers at all -- they have three ex-Dodgers on their team, that's the most appeal they have for me -- but at least they're not snakes. I don't like the Diamondbacks, I never will, they've done so many things as an organization that makes me not take them seriously and even if they win the World Series, I still won't take them seriously. Put them in the NL West with my ...